172-509: [REDACTED] Russian Empire : Only from May to July 13: 440,000 dead or wounded 60,000 prisoners 497,000–500,000 [REDACTED] Austria-Hungary: 200,000 dead or wounded 420,000–470,000 prisoners 670,000 estimated casualties [REDACTED] Germany: 184,000–500,000 all casualties [REDACTED] Ottoman Empire: 12,000 all casualties The Brusilov offensive ( Russian : Брусиловский прорыв Brusilovskiĭ proryv , literally: "Brusilov's breakthrough"), also known as
344-674: A constitutional referendum on whether to adopt Russian as a second official language. According to the Central Election Commission, 74.8% voted against, 24.9% voted for and the voter turnout was 71.1%. Starting in 2019, instruction in Russian will be gradually discontinued in private colleges and universities in Latvia, and in general instruction in Latvian public high schools. On 29 September 2022, Saeima passed in
516-519: A new education law which requires all schools to teach at least partially in Ukrainian, with provisions while allow indigenous languages and languages of national minorities to be used alongside the national language. The law faced criticism from officials in Russia and Hungary. The 2019 Law of Ukraine "On protecting the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the state language" gives priority to
688-470: A General Allied Offensive. On 7 September Gallieni, who had been going over Joffre's head and speaking to the war minister and President Raymond Poincaré , was ordered not to communicate directly with the government. This left Joffre "all-powerful" (in Gallieni's description), as he had sacked so many generals, leaving Gallieni his only serious rival. By early December 1914 Gallieni was being mooted as
860-623: A cavalry patrol disarmed and interned at Herța . Having no intention to force the hand of the Romanian government, the Russians quickly left Romanian territory. Lechitsky kept the XXIII and XLI Corps moving westward, while the XII and XI Corps advanced south to capture Czernowitz , and III Cavalry Corps threatened Kolomea . By 12 June his Russian troops were attacking Austro-Hungarian positions along
1032-679: A defensive strategy and opposed Brusilov's proposed offensive. Tsar Nicholas II had taken personal command of the Imperial Russian Army in September 1915. Evert was a strong supporter of Nicholas and the Romanovs , but the emperor approved Brusilov's plan. The offensive aimed to capture the cities of Kovel and Lviv (in present-day western Ukraine); the Central Powers had recovered both these cities in 1915. Although
1204-587: A detachment under Ferdinand Foch to cover the gap between Fourth and Fifth Armies; this became the new Ninth Army . Joffre turned up at Lanrezac's headquarters to supervise his conduct of the Battle of Guise (29 August), willing if necessary to sack him there and then. In the event he was impressed by Lanrezac's cool demeanour and handling of the battle. As a result of the battle, Alexander von Kluck 's German First Army broke off its attacks on Maunoury's Sixth Army and swung south-east, inside of Paris. Messimy ,
1376-607: A force of 700,000 men, compared to an opposition force of 421,000. Brusilov planned to advance towards Kovel on 20 July. Before then, on 16 July, the Siberian Corps forced Gruppe Marwitz to retreat back to the River Lipa. In an attempt to strengthen Marwitz, Puhallo's 1st Army was disbanded, and redistributed to Marwitz and Böhm-Ermolli's 2nd Army. On 23 July, Sakharov's 11th Army attacked towards Brody , capturing it on 28 July, forcing Böhm-Ermolli's 2nd Army 7 km to
1548-817: A former Prime Minister . The French along with the British had been preparing to do so since February after the announcement of the severance of diplomatic relations between the United States and Germany, in the expectation that an American declaration of war against Germany was imminent. He was initially reluctant to go as the Nivelle Offensive was underway. On 6 April the United States Congress declared war on Germany. The main problem for their new army would be training men and, especially, officers. Joffre initially considered recommending
1720-466: A formula with V standing for the nucleus (vowel) and C for each consonant, the maximal structure can be described as follows: (C)(C)(C)(C)V(C)(C)(C)(C) Joseph Joffre Joseph Jacques Césaire Joffre OM , GCB ( French: [ʒozɛf ʒɔfʁ] ; 12 January 1852 – 3 January 1931) was a French general who served as Commander-in-Chief of French forces on the Western Front from
1892-727: A good word with Lord Bertie , the British ambassador in Paris, so that it would get back to the French government. General Haig wanted to delay the Anglo-French offensive at the Somme until 15 August to allow for more training and more artillery. When told of this Joffre shouted at Haig that "the French Army would cease to exist" and had to be calmed down with "liberal doses of 1840 brandy." The British refused to agree to French demands for
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#17327656384782064-558: A hard or soft counterpart, and the distinction is a prominent feature of the language, which is usually shown in writing not by a change of the consonant but rather by changing the following vowel. Another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels . Stress , which is often unpredictable, is not normally indicated orthographically , though an optional acute accent may be used to mark stress – such as to distinguish between homographic words (e.g. замо́к [ zamók , 'lock'] and за́мок [ zámok , 'castle']), or to indicate
2236-477: A joint Anglo-French offensive from the Salonika bridgehead. Eventually, perhaps influenced by reports of French troop disturbances at Verdun, Haig agreed to attack at the start of July. This was just in time, as it later turned out that Philippe Pétain , commander at Verdun, was warning the French government that the "game was up" unless the British attacked. Joffre was successfully lobbied by Robertson , and at
2408-484: A language that "belongs to the European cultural space". The financing of Russian-language content by the state will cease, which the concept says create a "unified information space". However, one inevitable consequence would be the closure of public media broadcasts in Russian on LTV and Latvian Radio, as well as the closure of LSM's Russian-language service. In Lithuania , Russian has no official or legal status, but
2580-588: A lesser extent the languages to the south and the east: Uralic , Turkic , Persian , Arabic , and Hebrew . According to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California , Russian is classified as a level III language in terms of learning difficulty for native English speakers, requiring approximately 1,100 hours of immersion instruction to achieve intermediate fluency. Feudal divisions and conflicts created obstacles between
2752-840: A massive offensive by his Southwestern Front against the Austro-Hungarian forces in Galicia . Brusilov's plan aimed to take some of the pressure off French and British armies in France and the Royal Italian Army along the Isonzo Front and, if possible, to knock Austria-Hungary out of the war. General Alexei Evert , commander of the Russian Western Army Group based in Smolensk, favored
2924-622: A minority language under the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities . 30% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 2% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. In Azerbaijan , Russian has no official status, but is a lingua franca of the country. 26% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 5% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. In Georgia , Russian has no official status, but it
3096-472: A potential commander-in-chief in Joffre's place, or minister of war, or both. On 7 January 1915, over Joffre's opposition, President Poincaré came out in favour of the proposal of Franchet d'Espèrey, Gallieni and justice minister Aristide Briand for an expedition to Salonika , which he hoped would detach first Turkey then Austria-Hungary, leaving Germany "doomed." Joffre fought a further major offensive in
3268-526: A qualitatively new entity can be said to emerge—the general language of the working class... capitalism has the tendency of creating the general urban language of a given society. In 2010, there were 259.8 million speakers of Russian in the world: in Russia – 137.5 million, in the CIS and Baltic countries – 93.7 million, in Eastern Europe – 12.9 million, Western Europe – 7.3 million, Asia – 2.7 million, in
3440-617: A single American unit to France at once and requested that the Americans send railroads, automobiles and trucks for the French Army. On 30 April the British Major-General Tom Bridges lobbied for US troops to be used to reinforce the British Army, arguing this would lessen the language and food differences. Joffre left a paper arguing for a separate American force, then on 4 May began a week's tour of
3612-646: A staff of his own and "direction of the war". On 13 December Briand formed a new government, which that day survived a vote of confidence by only thirty votes. Joffre was appointed "general-in-chief of the French armies, technical adviser to the government, consultative member of the War Committee", with Robert Nivelle as commander-in-chief of the Armies of the North and Northeast. It is unclear exactly what Briand had told Joffre about his role; he commented, "This
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#17327656384783784-446: A strong defensive position, from which further offensives might be launched in the future. To Briand's and Joffre's surprise, Roques, the minister of war, returned from a fact-finding mission to Salonika recommending that Sarrail be reinforced and that he no longer report to Joffre. Coming on the back of the disappointing results of the Somme campaign and the fall of Romania, Roques's report further discredited Briand and Joffre and added to
3956-588: A unit's headquarters, listen to reports, and then depart having said hardly a word, to the consternation of the officers he had just inspected. At the time of the Battle of the Marne, he was heavily dependent on his deputy chief of staff, General Henri Mathias Berthelot . Sir John French , commander-in-chief of the British Expeditionary Force , thought highly of him. Georges Boillot , winner of
4128-496: A victory in 1916. The irony was that other Russian commanders did not realize the potential of the tactics that Brusilov had devised. Similar tactics were proposed separately by French, Germans and British on the Western Front and employed at the Battle of Verdun earlier in the year. The tactics would henceforth be used to an even greater degree by the Germans, who used stormtroopers and infiltration tactics to great effect in
4300-487: A wide front (see: Battle of Kostiuchnówka ). Within four days of the offensive, the Austro-Hungarian 4th Army saw its strength fall by nearly 70 per cent, from 117,800 men to just 35,000. The southern sector was held by the Austro-Hungarian 7th Army, which by 8 June lost 76,200 of its 194,200 soldiers. Archduke Joseph Ferdinand was replaced by Karl Tersztyánszky von Nádas as 4th Army commander, and Hugo Martiny
4472-406: A word of French, a message arrived from Franchet d'Espèrey saying that he would be ready to attack on 6 September. At this point Gallieni, who returned to Paris to find Joffre's message from earlier in the day and a message from Wilson, insisted on speaking to Joffre personally on the telephone, informing him that it was too late to cancel the movement of Maunoury's army. Joffre agreed to bring forward
4644-539: Is Belarusian, among ethnic Belarusians this share is 28.5%; the highest share of those who speak Belarusian at home is among ethnic Poles — 46.0%. In Estonia , Russian is spoken by 29.6% of the population, according to a 2011 estimate from the World Factbook, and is officially considered a foreign language. School education in the Russian language is a very contentious point in Estonian politics, and in 2022,
4816-481: Is a co-official language per article 5 of the Constitution of Kyrgyzstan . The 2009 census states that 482,200 people speak Russian as a native language, or 8.99% of the population. Additionally, 1,854,700 residents of Kyrgyzstan aged 15 and above fluently speak Russian as a second language, or 49.6% of the population in the age group. In Tajikistan , Russian is the language of inter-ethnic communication under
4988-401: Is a high degree of mutual intelligibility between Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian , and a moderate degree of it in all modern Slavic languages, at least at the conversational level. Russian is written using a Cyrillic alphabet. The Russian alphabet consists of 33 letters. The following table gives their forms, along with IPA values for each letter's typical sound: Older letters of
5160-610: Is a post-posed definite article -to , -ta , -te similar to that existing in Bulgarian and Macedonian. In the Southern Russian dialects , instances of unstressed /e/ and /a/ following palatalized consonants and preceding a stressed syllable are not reduced to [ɪ] (as occurs in the Moscow dialect), being instead pronounced [a] in such positions (e.g. несл и is pronounced [nʲaˈslʲi] , not [nʲɪsˈlʲi] ) – this
5332-488: Is being used less frequently by Russian-speaking typists in favor of the extension of Unicode character encoding , which fully incorporates the Russian alphabet. Free programs are available offering this Unicode extension, which allow users to type Russian characters, even on Western 'QWERTY' keyboards. The Russian language was first introduced to computing after the M-1 , and MESM models were produced in 1951. According to
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5504-624: Is called yakanye ( яканье ). Consonants include a fricative /ɣ/ , a semivowel /w⁓u̯/ and /x⁓xv⁓xw/ , whereas the Standard and Northern dialects have the consonants /ɡ/ , /v/ , and final /l/ and /f/ , respectively. The morphology features a palatalized final /tʲ/ in 3rd person forms of verbs (this is unpalatalized in the Standard and Northern dialects). During the Proto-Slavic (Common Slavic) times all Slavs spoke one mutually intelligible language or group of dialects. There
5676-573: Is more spoken than English. Sizable Russian-speaking communities also exist in North America, especially in large urban centers of the US and Canada, such as New York City , Philadelphia , Boston , Los Angeles , Nashville , San Francisco , Seattle , Spokane , Toronto , Calgary , Baltimore , Miami , Portland , Chicago , Denver , and Cleveland . In a number of locations they issue their own newspapers, and live in ethnic enclaves (especially
5848-542: Is not what they promised me," when reading the newspaper on the morning of 13 December and was put out to be described as "general-in-chief" rather than "commander-in-chief." He departed at once for Paris, but was persuaded to accept by Briand. On 17 December, he told the British liaison officer, Sidney Clive, "I am the commander-in-chief and I intend to command effectively." However, he soon found that he had no real power—the acting war minister ( Admiral Lacaze , as General Lyautey had not yet returned from North Africa to take up
6020-564: Is odd") – чу́дно ( chúdno – "this is marvellous"), молоде́ц ( molodéts – "well done!") – мо́лодец ( mólodets – "fine young man"), узна́ю ( uznáyu – "I shall learn it") – узнаю́ ( uznayú – "I recognize it"), отреза́ть ( otrezát – "to be cutting") – отре́зать ( otrézat – "to have cut"); to indicate the proper pronunciation of uncommon words, especially personal and family names, like афе́ра ( aféra , "scandal, affair"), гу́ру ( gúru , "guru"), Гарси́я ( García ), Оле́ша ( Olésha ), Фе́рми ( Fermi ), and to show which
6192-762: Is one of two official languages aboard the International Space Station , one of the six official languages of the United Nations , as well as the fourth most widely used language on the Internet . Russian is written using the Russian alphabet of the Cyrillic script ; it distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without—the so-called "soft" and "hard" sounds. Almost every consonant has
6364-402: Is recognized as a minority language under the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities . Russian is the language of 9% of the population according to the World Factbook. Ethnologue cites Russian as the country's de facto working language. In China , Russian has no official status, but it is spoken by the small Russian communities in the northeastern Heilongjiang and
6536-569: Is sometimes considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. Also, Russian has notable lexical similarities with Bulgarian due to a common Church Slavonic influence on both languages, but because of later interaction in the 19th and 20th centuries, Bulgarian grammar differs markedly from Russian. Over the course of centuries, the vocabulary and literary style of Russian have also been influenced by Western and Central European languages such as Greek, Latin , Polish , Dutch , German, French, Italian, and English, and to
6708-585: Is spoken by 14.2% of the population according to an undated estimate from the World Factbook. In 2005, Russian was the most widely taught foreign language in Mongolia, and was compulsory in Year 7 onward as a second foreign language in 2006. Around 1.5 million Israelis spoke Russian as of 2017. The Israeli press and websites regularly publish material in Russian and there are Russian newspapers, television stations, schools, and social media outlets based in
6880-518: Is the stressed word in a sentence, for example Ты́ съел печенье? ( Tý syel pechenye? – "Was it you who ate the cookie?") – Ты съе́л печенье? ( Ty syél pechenye? – "Did you eat the cookie?) – Ты съел пече́нье? ( Ty syel pechénye? "Was it the cookie you ate?"). Stress marks are mandatory in lexical dictionaries and books for children or Russian learners. The Russian syllable structure can be quite complex, with both initial and final consonant clusters of up to four consecutive sounds. Using
7052-470: The 2011 Lithuanian census , Russian was the native language for 7.2% of the population. In Moldova , Russian was considered to be the language of interethnic communication under a Soviet-era law. On 21 January 2021, the Constitutional Court of Moldova declared the law unconstitutional and deprived Russian of the status of the language of interethnic communication. 50% of the population
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7224-711: The 2nd Army Corps from 1908 until 1910 when he was appointed to the Conseil supérieur de la guerre . The Minister of War Adolphe Messimy reorganized the high command of the French Army in July 1911. General Victor-Constant Michel , the Vice President of the Conseil supérieur de la guerre and Commander-in-Chief designate, was sacked after proposing a defensive strategy in the event of war with Germany. Messimy took
7396-1000: The Apollo–Soyuz mission, which first flew in 1975. In March 2013, Russian was found to be the second-most used language on websites after English. Russian was the language of 5.9% of all websites, slightly ahead of German and far behind English (54.7%). Russian was used not only on 89.8% of .ru sites, but also on 88.7% of sites with the former Soviet Union domain .su . Websites in former Soviet Union member states also used high levels of Russian: 79.0% in Ukraine, 86.9% in Belarus, 84.0% in Kazakhstan, 79.6% in Uzbekistan, 75.9% in Kyrgyzstan and 81.8% in Tajikistan. However, Russian
7568-470: The Artois in spring 1915. He told Wilson (23 March) that "by the end of Apr[il] he would be in a condition to attack & break (underline) the line." On 4 May "he talked of getting to Namur & the war being over in 3 (months)." With Viviani 's government in trouble following the resignation of Theophile Delcasse as foreign minister, the unsuccessful autumn offensive and the entry of Bulgaria into
7740-633: The Caucasus , Central Asia , and to a lesser extent in the Baltic states and Israel . Russian has over 258 million total speakers worldwide. It is the most spoken native language in Europe , the most spoken Slavic language , as well as the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia . It is the world's seventh-most spoken language by number of native speakers , and the world's ninth-most spoken language by total number of speakers . Russian
7912-413: The Constitution of Tajikistan and is permitted in official documentation. 28% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 7% used it as the main language with family, friends or at work. The World Factbook notes that Russian is widely used in government and business. In Turkmenistan , Russian lost its status as the official lingua franca in 1996. Among 12% of the population who grew up in
8084-594: The Eastern Front , in the hope of obtaining munitions from Britain and France. In March 1916 the Russians initiated the disastrous Lake Naroch offensive in the Vilnius area, during which the Germans suffered only one-fifth as many casualties as the Russians. This offensive took place at French request – General Joseph Joffre had hoped that the Imperial German Army would transfer more units to
8256-665: The Indo-European language family . It is one of the four extant East Slavic languages, and is the native language of the Russians . It was the de facto and de jure official language of the former Soviet Union . Russian has remained an official language of the Russian Federation , Belarus , Kazakhstan , Kyrgyzstan , and Tajikistan , and is still commonly used as a lingua franca in Ukraine , Moldova ,
8428-643: The June advance , or Battle of Galicia-Volhynia , of June to September 1916 was the Russian Empire 's greatest feat of arms during World War I , and among the most lethal offensives in world history . The historian Graydon Tunstall called the Brusilov offensive the worst crisis of World War I for Austria-Hungary and the Triple Entente 's greatest victory, but it came at a tremendous loss of life. It
8600-402: The Keelung Campaign during the Sino-French War (August 1884 – April 1885). As a major, he led a column from Ségou to Timbuktu in Mali, where he recovered the remains of Lt. Col. Bonnier, who had been killed on a recent expedition. His mission killed over a hundred Tuareg and captured fifteen hundred cattle. He was promoted as a result. He served under Joseph Gallieni in Madagascar and
8772-429: The Pruth , and crossing that river by 14 June. By then, the Austro-Hungarian losses amounted to 205,000, of which 150,000 were prisoners. On 17 June, the Russians captured Czernowitz, and Alexeyev transferred the 3rd Army from Evert's West Front to Brusilov's Southwest Front. Meanwhile, Bothmer's South Army prepared to attack southwards, hoping Pflanzer-Baltin's Seventh Army could hold its ground. On 18 June, Lechitsky
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#17327656384788944-417: The Supreme War Council in 1918. That same year, he was elected to the American Philosophical Society . When he retired in 1919, he was made a member of the Académie française and an International Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . In 1920 he presided over the Jocs Florals in Barcelona , a Catalan literary certamen (he was born in French Catalonia and his mother tongue
9116-476: The Ukrainian language in more than 30 spheres of public life: in particular in public administration , media, education, science, culture, advertising, services . The law does not regulate private communication. A poll conducted in March 2022 by RATING in the territory controlled by Ukraine found that 83% of the respondents believe that Ukrainian should be the only state language of Ukraine. This opinion dominates in all macro-regions, age and language groups. On
9288-507: The United States Census , in 2007 Russian was the primary language spoken in the homes of over 850,000 individuals living in the United States. Russian is one of the official languages (or has similar status and interpretation must be provided into Russian) of the following: The Russian language is also one of two official languages aboard the International Space Station – NASA astronauts who serve alongside Russian cosmonauts usually take Russian language courses. This practice goes back to
9460-403: The École Polytechnique and became a career officer. He first saw active service as a junior artillery officer during the Siege of Paris in the Franco-Prussian War . After the war he underwent further training at the École Polytechnique before transferring to the génie (engineers). Joffre subsequently spent much of his career in the colonies as a military engineer, serving with distinction in
9632-407: The 11th Army towards Brody , while the 7th and 9th Armies continued their advance. Brusilov met the German attacks on the Lutsk salient flanks by attacking in turn the German flanks. However, the Germans achieved only moderate success, pushing back the Russian XLV Corps 5 km. From 27 June to 3 July 1916, Brusilov carried out, on his own initiative, the deportation of 13,000 German civilians from
9804-508: The 1918 Spring Offensive . With the benefit of hindsight, it has been stated that Russia was not able to take advantage of its success nor cement it. In Russian society, pessimism regarding Russia's prospects in the war and distrust in the competence of its military and political leadership would continue to grow in 1916. Russian casualties were considerable, numbering between 500,000 and 1,000,000. Austria-Hungary and Germany lost from 616,000, and from 148,000 to 350,000, respectively. The total
9976-405: The 20th century, Russian was a mandatory language taught in the schools of the members of the old Warsaw Pact and in other countries that used to be satellites of the USSR. According to the Eurobarometer 2005 survey, fluency in Russian remains fairly high (20–40%) in some countries, in particular former Warsaw Pact countries. In Armenia , Russian has no official status, but it is recognized as
10148-476: The Allied offensive to 6 September and to have the Sixth Army attack north of the Marne instead, later writing that he had done so reluctantly as Maunoury would probably make contact with the Germans on 5 September, but that an extra day would have left the Germans in a more "disadvantageous" position. Tuchman argues that he may simply have been swayed by the dominant personality of Gallieni, his former superior. At 10 pm Joffre issued General Order No 6 , ordering
10320-517: The Austro-Hungarian defenses, coordinated in advance with the infantry commanders. Winogradsky wrote, this was followed by a "creeping barrage in front of the assault infantry...while the 152mm howitzers and 122mm guns attacked hard points." This was followed by attacks by infantry in Kaledin's 8th Army, Vladimir Viktorovich Sakharov 's 11th Army, Dmitry Shcherbachev 's 7th Army, and Lechitsky's 9th Army. On 5 June, according to Prit Buttar, "...the Russian gunners resumed their careful demolition work of
10492-412: The Belarusian society the Russian language prevails, so according to the 2019 census 6,718,557 people (71.4% of the total population) stated that they speak Russian at home, for ethnic Belarusians this share is 61.4%, for Russians — 97.2%, for Ukrainians — 89.0%, for Poles — 52.4%, and for Jews — 96.6%; 2,447,764 people (26.0% of the total population) stated that the language they usually speak at home
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#173276563847810664-446: The British right, which envisaged the Sixth Army attacking north of the Marne. In the absence of news from Franchet d'Espèrey, Joffre ordered Gamelin to draft orders for Maunoury to attack south of the Marne on 7 September. This intention was also passed on to Sir John French . While Joffre was having dinner with the British liaison officer, Sidney Clive , and two visiting Japanese officers , neither of whom appeared to understand
10836-466: The Bug to the north. By the end of 6 June, The X and UU Corps, plus Sándor Szurmay 's Corps, of the Austro-Hungarian 4th Army, had been pushed back to the Styr and beyond, while Kaledin's XL and II Corps pushed onward to Lutsk. By the end of 7 June, the 4th Army retreat was unstoppable, with many elements of the X Corps surrendering when caught against the river, or casualties in attempts to cross. 4th Army supplies abandoned in Lutsk went up in flames as
11008-408: The Dardanelles. By November he was again lobbying Poincaré that either a strong minister of war, backed by a strong chief of staff (e.g. Castelnau ) be given strategic direction of the war—Joffre did not favour this option, believing that governments rose and fell too frequently for this to be sensible—or else that Joffre himself be appointed commander-in-chief over all fronts. Poincaré was persuaded of
11180-409: The Eastern Front. According to Prit Buttar , "To make matters worse, many of the experienced divisions on the Eastern Front were withdrawn and sent to the Alps, and replaced by formations largely composed of new inexperienced recruits." At a war council held with senior commanders and the tsar in April 1916, General Aleksei Brusilov presented a plan to the Stavka (the Russian high command), proposing
11352-544: The Fifth Army was attacked again. On 23 August Joffre reported to Adolphe Messimy , the French war minister, that his Fourth Army was pressing into the Ardennes with (he believed, wrongly) local numerical superiority, despite the fact that he had already received reports of French defeats in this sector on previous days. The German Fourth and Fifth Armies were in fact advancing against the French forces in front of them rather than moving westwards as Joffre believed. In his memoirs Joffre later admitted that he had been mistaken (he
11524-751: The French Grand Prix 1912 and 1913, was Joffre's personal driver in 1914, and Joffre's car tearing along roads became a familiar sight. General Hubert Lyautey thought Joffre a better logistician than strategist. His major positive contributions in 1914 were his sustained calm under pressure and the calculated reasoning of an alumnus from École Polytechnique , his ruthless dismissal of unsuccessful generals (three army commanders, ten corps commanders and thirty-eight divisional commanders, replacing them with combative men like Foch, Franchet d'Espèrey and—more junior at that stage—Petain and Nivelle), and his outstanding logistical handling of French infantry divisional movements and artillery ammunition supplies during and after
11696-441: The French Armies" ( generalissimo ). After considerable discussion this was approved by the Chamber of Deputies by 406–67 on 9 December. In practice, Joffre now took command over both Salonika and the Western Front, but not Morocco , Algeria or Tunisia . There was also friction over Gallieni's assertion of his right to appoint generals, Joffre's practice of communicating directly with the British generals rather than going through
11868-411: The French Third and Fourth Armies now attacking into the Ardennes , and the infantry outpacing their horsedrawn artillery, von Bülow 's German Second Army attacked Lanrezac and forced bridgeheads across the Meuse. The Fifth Army was also now attacked on its right by Max von Hausen 's German Third Army ; although these attacks were held, Lanrezac asked Joffre for permission to retreat. On 23 August
12040-411: The French retreat of August 1914. Doughty writes of the Marne: "Gallieni's role was important, but the key concept and decisions lay with Joffre." Joffre recovered from the initial disastrous attacks into Lorraine and the Ardennes and redeployed forces to the west. He kept his cool when the initial attempt to have Maunoury envelop the German west flank at Amiens failed, requiring a retreat on Paris. While
12212-401: The French. On 15 August, after German cavalry had been spotted at Dinant on the Meuse, and after repeated warnings from Charles Lanrezac of the Fifth Army , Joffre issued his Instruction Particuliere No 10 , stating that the main German effort would come through Belgium. Although Joffre was aware (8am on 18 August) that as many as fifteen German corps were moving through Belgium (in fact it
12384-532: The Great and developed from the Moscow ( Middle or Central Russian ) dialect substratum under the influence of some of the previous century's Russian chancery language. Prior to the Bolshevik Revolution , the spoken form of the Russian language was that of the nobility and the urban bourgeoisie. Russian peasants, the great majority of the population, continued to speak in their own dialects. However,
12556-590: The Institute of Russian Language of the Russian Academy of Sciences, an optional acute accent ( знак ударения ) may, and sometimes should, be used to mark stress . For example, it is used to distinguish between otherwise identical words, especially when context does not make it obvious: замо́к ( zamók – "lock") – за́мок ( zámok – "castle"), сто́ящий ( stóyashchy – "worthwhile") – стоя́щий ( stoyáshchy – "standing"), чудно́ ( chudnó – "this
12728-526: The Middle East and North Africa – 1.3 million, Sub-Saharan Africa – 0.1 million, Latin America – 0.2 million, U.S., Canada , Australia, and New Zealand – 4.1 million speakers. Therefore, the Russian language is the seventh-largest in the world by the number of speakers , after English, Mandarin, Hindi -Urdu, Spanish, French, Arabic, and Portuguese. Russian is one of the six official languages of
12900-807: The Russian alphabet include ⟨ ѣ ⟩ , which merged to ⟨ е ⟩ ( /je/ or /ʲe/ ); ⟨ і ⟩ and ⟨ ѵ ⟩ , which both merged to ⟨ и ⟩ ( /i/ ); ⟨ ѳ ⟩ , which merged to ⟨ ф ⟩ ( /f/ ); ⟨ ѫ ⟩ , which merged to ⟨ у ⟩ ( /u/ ); ⟨ ѭ ⟩ , which merged to ⟨ ю ⟩ ( /ju/ or /ʲu/ ); and ⟨ ѧ ⟩ and ⟨ ѩ ⟩ , which later were graphically reshaped into ⟨ я ⟩ and merged phonetically to /ja/ or /ʲa/ . While these older letters have been abandoned at one time or another, they may be used in this and related articles. The yers ⟨ ъ ⟩ and ⟨ ь ⟩ originally indicated
13072-762: The Russian army ten days later. Brusilov chose Alexey Kaledin 's Eighth Army to spearhead the capture of Lutsk and Kovel. Kaledin's attacking force included the XXXII Corps in the south, the VIII and XL Corps in the center, and XXXIX Corps in the north. The Russians fielded 148 infantry battalions against the 53 battalions in Archduke Joseph Ferdinand 's Fourth Army. Further south on the Austro-Hungarian front were Paul Puhallo von Brlog 's 1st Army , Eduard von Böhm-Ermolli 's 2nd Army , and Karl von Pflanzer-Baltin 's 7th Army . Mounting pressure from
13244-458: The Russian principalities before and especially during Mongol rule. This strengthened dialectal differences, and for a while, prevented the emergence of a standardized national language. The formation of the unified and centralized Russian state in the 15th and 16th centuries, and the gradual re-emergence of a common political, economic, and cultural space created the need for a common standard language. The initial impulse for standardization came from
13416-471: The Russians occupied the town. Further south, Pflanzer-Baltin's 7th Army was pushed back to the Strypa , as Shcherbachev's Seventh Army captured Jazłowiek . The first major attack was against the 117,800 strong Austro-Hungarian 4th Army, in the northernmost sector of the front. The initial attack was successful, and the Austro-Hungarian lines were broken, enabling three of Brusilov's four armies to advance on
13588-458: The Soviet era can speak Russian, other generations of citizens that do not have any knowledge of Russian. Primary and secondary education by Russian is almost non-existent. In Uzbekistan , Russian is the language of inter-ethnic communication. It has some official roles, being permitted in official documentation and is the lingua franca of the country and the language of the elite. Russian
13760-562: The Stavka had approved Brusilov's plan, his request for supporting offensives by the neighboring fronts (the Western under Evert and Northern under Aleksey Kuropatkin ) was denied. On 26 May, the tsar issued orders for accelerating the start of the Russian summer offensive, in response to pleas from the Italians facing Conrad's offensive. Brusilov would attack on 4 June, and the rest of
13932-403: The United Nations. Education in Russian is still a popular choice for both Russian as a second language (RSL) and native speakers in Russia, and in many former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics. In Belarus , Russian is a second state language alongside Belarusian per the Constitution of Belarus . 77% of
14104-536: The Volhynian areas that had been conquered during the offensive. On 2 July, Evert's West Front finally started its offensive, with Alexander Ragoza 's Fourth army attacking north of Baranovichi . Yet, according to Buttar, "it was in almost every respect a replay of the disastrous attacks of March...an imprecise artillery bombardment, mass infantry attacks that struggled to make progress and lacked sufficient support to sustain early gains...". On 9 July, Evert suspended
14276-425: The abandonment of Verdun when the Germans first attacked. Gallieni demanded to see all paperwork from the period, but Joffre had made no such order in writing, merely despatching Castelnau to assess the situation. The political atmosphere had become poisonous. Gallieni presented a highly critical report to the council of ministers on 7 March—read in his usual precise way—criticising Joffre's conduct of operations over
14448-656: The advice of his staff officer General Berthelot that Lanrezac be ordered to attack westwards against the inside of the German right wing, he instead had Major Maurice Gamelin draw up plans for a French concentration at Amiens, with many of the troops drawn from the French right wing in Alsace, and with regret also ordered the successful counterattacks of the Third Army and the Army of Lorraine be called off. Michel-Joseph Maunoury
14620-403: The broader sense of expanding the use of Russian alongside or in favour of other languages. The current standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the modern Russian literary language ( современный русский литературный язык – "sovremenny russky literaturny yazyk"). It arose at the beginning of the 18th century with the modernization reforms of the Russian state under the rule of Peter
14792-541: The casualties of the combined Austrian and German armies were at least one million, with the Russians taking 417,000 prisoners alone. The Brusilov offensive is considered one of the most lethal offensives in world history . However, the figure of 500,000 Russian casualties refers only to the period from May 28 to July 13, 1916, that is, the first stage of the offensive of the Russian Southwestern Front. A calculation from Russian military archives gives
14964-400: The closed session (28 November – 7 December) Briand had little choice but to make concessions to preserve his government, and in a speech of 29 November he promised to repeal the decree of 2 December 1915 and in vague terms to appoint a general as technical adviser to the government. He met Joffre on 3 December 1916—according to Joffre, promising to appoint him Marshal of France and to give him
15136-476: The command of Joseph Gallieni as military governor of Paris and forming a new cavalry corps under Louis Conneau to fill the gap between the Fifth Army and the British Expeditionary Force (BEF). At this stage his mind was still leaning towards Berthelot's old suggestion that the Fifth Army attack westwards against the inside of the German right wing. On 2 September, the anniversary of the Battle of Sedan ,
15308-572: The country. There is an Israeli TV channel mainly broadcasting in Russian with Israel Plus . See also Russian language in Israel . Russian is also spoken as a second language by a small number of people in Afghanistan . In Vietnam , Russian has been added in the elementary curriculum along with Chinese and Japanese and were named as "first foreign languages" for Vietnamese students to learn, on equal footing with English. The Russian language
15480-436: The defences of Joseph Ferdinand's 4th Army ... After two days of careful artillery fire and infantry attacks, Kaledin was confident their success was close. His troops had overrun both the first and second lines of enemy defences, and had inflicted heavy losses on the Austro-Hungarian 4th Army." Ferdinand was almost out of artillery ammunition, had used all of his reserves, and was forced to seek help from Linsingen 's Army of
15652-594: The east after the Battle of Verdun began in February 1916. Besides the complacency felt by the Germans and Austro-Hungarians after their successful defense of Russian attacks that winter and March, the Austro-Hungarians were in the midst of implementing their plans to knock Italy out of the war. Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf had transferred Kövess ' troops from the Balkans as well as four divisions from
15824-484: The eastern US. In full view of the press, he waited his turn in a barber's shop in St. Louis for a haircut, visited the hometowns of Abraham Lincoln ( Springfield, Illinois ) and Ulysses Grant , laid wreaths at the statues of Joan of Arc and Lafayette , and visited West Point . He returned on 10 May to find that the US authorities agreed with the recommendations in his paper. The 1st US Infantry Division , mainly regulars,
15996-578: The end of 1916 he was promoted to Marshal of France , the first such elevation under the Third Republic , and moved to an advisory role, from which he quickly resigned. Later in the war he led an important mission to the United States. Joffre was born in Rivesaltes , Pyrénées-Orientales, into a family of vineyard owners. At a young age, he was a studious student, excelling at mathematics , descriptive geometry , and drawing. In 1870, he entered
16168-495: The entanglements to remain intact during the Russian attack. By these methods Brusilov hoped to lessen the exposure, and increase the surprise, of his attacking troops. Instead of massed formations, each of Brusilov's armies would attack along a 15 km wide sector of their choice, attacking in waves with two reinforced infantry corps. On 4 June, the Russians opened the offensive with heavy artillery fire. Alexander Winogradsky's artillery brigade used 76mm guns to open 24 breaches in
16340-413: The factory and the industrial plant their local peasant dialects with their phonetics, grammar, and vocabulary, and the very process of recruiting workers from peasants and the mobility of the worker population generate another process: the liquidation of peasant inheritance by way of leveling the particulars of local dialects. On the ruins of peasant multilingual, in the context of developing heavy industry,
16512-456: The final reading amendments that state that all schools and kindergartens in the country are to transition to education in Latvian . From 2025, all children will be taught in Latvian only. On 28 September 2023, Latvian deputies approved The National Security Concept, according to which from 1 January 2026, all content created by Latvian public media (including LSM ) should be only in Latvian or
16684-524: The flag. 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment was sent, and was reviewed by Joffre and President Poincaré as it marched up the Champs-Élysées on 4 July. Pershing rejected Painlevé's suggestion that Joffre head the liaison group of French officers who were helping to set up his supply lines; Pershing insisted on using the Atlantic ports of Brest, St Nazaire and Rochefort. Joffre became leader of
16856-463: The following figure: 62,155 killed, 376,910 wounded and 59,802 missing. Total of 497,967 men for Russian Southwestern Front in just the first 1.5 months of the battle. And the losses of Austria-Hungary and Germany were 1,000,000 to 1,500,000 men for the period from June to December 1916. Russian language Russian is an East Slavic language belonging to the Balto-Slavic branch of
17028-469: The front line. He used them to dig entrenchments about 300 m × 90 m (328 yd × 98 yd) along the front line. These provided shelter for the troops and hindered observation by the Austrians. Brusilov extended his army's trenches forward as far as possible, in some cases to within 100m of the Austro-Hungarian positions. Tunnels were also dug below the Russian barbed wire, allowing
17200-692: The generation of immigrants who started arriving in the early 1960s). Only about 25% of them are ethnic Russians, however. Before the dissolution of the Soviet Union , the overwhelming majority of Russophones in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn in New York City were Russian-speaking Jews. Afterward, the influx from the countries of the former Soviet Union changed the statistics somewhat, with ethnic Russians and Ukrainians immigrating along with some more Russian Jews and Central Asians. According to
17372-480: The government bureaucracy for the lack of a reliable tool of communication in administrative, legal, and judicial affairs became an obvious practical problem. The earliest attempts at standardizing Russian were made based on the so-called Moscow official or chancery language, during the 15th to 17th centuries. Since then, the trend of language policy in Russia has been standardization in both the restricted sense of reducing dialectical barriers between ethnic Russians, and
17544-491: The government left Paris for Bordeaux. That day Joffre placed Maunoury under Gallieni's direct command as the "Armies of Paris" and had Millerand place Gallieni under his own command. Joffre planned to retreat behind the Seine before counterattacking. He envisaged "a battle", probably to take place around 8 September, "between the horns of Paris and Verdun.". He sacked Lanrezac on the afternoon of 3 September, replacing him with
17716-466: The incorporation of US companies and battalions into the French and British armies, but realised that the Americans would never accept this. The party sailed to the US on the Lorraine II , making an effort to cultivate reporters on board, who noticed how busy Joffre kept his small staff. While at sea he learned of the failure of Nivelle's offensive. He landed on 24 April at Hampton Roads , where he
17888-423: The keystone of the system of Verdun forts, had been given up without a fight, becoming a shelter and operational base for German forces just behind their front line. In the words of one French divisional commander, its loss would cost the French army a hundred thousand lives. Joffre's political position had already weakened after the enormous losses of 1915, and now rumours circulated in Paris that Joffre had ordered
18060-455: The last eighteen months and demanding ministerial control, then resigned. It is unclear whether he was specifically trying to have Joffre ousted as Poincaré believed. With the survival of the government at stake, General Roques was appointed minister of war after it had been ensured that Joffre had no objections. Joffre himself had been mooted for the job. Early in 1916 Joffre asked the British commander-in-chief, Sir Douglas Haig , to put in
18232-512: The latter option, and persuaded Briand, who arranged for Joffre and Gallieni to meet and shake hands. At the meeting of the Superior Council of Defence (24 November 1915) Joffre had Briand address the demarcation of his own and Gallieni's authority, and objected to the council discussing operational matters, threatening to resign if they attempted to interfere with his "liberty.". Joffre met with Poincaré and Briand both before and after
18404-525: The lodge Alsace-Lorraine. According to British author Alan Palmer , many French generals were of the generation educated in the Catholic teaching which had grown up after the Loi Falloux and therefore, unlike Joffre, suspected of hostility to the Third Republic . Joffre was generally taciturn and a man of impenetrable calm, sometimes interspersed with furious anger. He would sometimes turn up at
18576-454: The losses, the Russian armies were still being reinforced with new forces, the number of weapons increased, and new railways were being built. The result of the battle will fully restore Russia's prestige among the allies, which forced them to make serious territorial concessions, such as Anatolia and Constantinople, the French government confirmed the possibility of the Russians themselves to choose which territories to tear away from Germany after
18748-541: The main offensive. The German attack on Verdun began on 21 February, reducing the planned French commitment to the Somme. The French General Staff had decided in August 1915 to partially disarm all the Verdun forts, under the erroneous assumption that they could not resist the effects of modern heavy artillery, and the Germans initially made good progress against fortifications that had had their guns removed. Fort Douaumont,
18920-476: The meeting to discuss the issue. Gallieni, who favoured a strong war ministry with his own operational staff, complained bitterly in his diary about the politicians' unwillingness to stand up to Joffre. On 1 December Poincaré and Briand met with Gallieni, who agreed that Joffre be commander-in-chief, with Castelnau—who was soon sidelined—as his chief of staff, although under the war minister's orders. A presidential decree of 2 December made Joffre "Commander-in-Chief of
19092-472: The more aggressive Louis Franchet d'Espèrey . On the night of 3–4 September Joffre sent a handwritten note to Gallieni, wanting Maunoury to push east along the north bank of the Marne, although not specifying a date. This was in line with his modification of Instruction General No 4 (2 September), envisaging a giant pocket from Paris to Verdun, of which he enclosed copies to Gallieni. At 9.45 am on 4 September Gallieni, who had learned from Paris aviators
19264-524: The northwestern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region . Russian was also the main foreign language taught in school in China between 1949 and 1964. In Kazakhstan , Russian is not a state language, but according to article 7 of the Constitution of Kazakhstan its usage enjoys equal status to that of the Kazakh language in state and local administration. The 2009 census reported that 10,309,500 people, or 84.8% of
19436-703: The onset of the Russian Revolution the following year. It was the largest battle in World War I according to the total losses and forces of the parties. Under the terms of the Chantilly Agreement of December 1915, Russia, France , Britain and Italy committed to simultaneous attacks against the Central Powers in the summer of 1916. Russia felt reluctantly obliged to lend troops to fight in France and Salonika , and to attack on
19608-472: The operation, with the 4th Army losing 80,000, having advanced only 5 km. Likewise, Kuropatkin 's Northern Front offensive in mid-July failed to appreciably change the front line. On 4 July, attacks by Lesh's 3rd Army and Kaledin's 8th Army forced Linsingen to withdraw westwards to the Stochod river on 6 July. On 5 July Archduke Karl took command of the new 12th Army , while on 9 July, Kövesz 3rd Army
19780-552: The opportunity to merge the office of vice president with the Chief of the General Staff and create a single professional head of the Army. The newly enhanced post was first offered to Gallieni and Paul Pau , who both declined, leading to Joffre's appointment. With the revival of the army and a purge of "defensive-minded" officers, he adopted the strategy devised by Ferdinand Foch , the deployment plan known as Plan XVII . He
19952-515: The other hand, before the war, almost a quarter of Ukrainians were in favour of granting Russian the status of the state language, while after the beginning of Russia's invasion the support for the idea dropped to just 7%. In peacetime, the idea of raising the status of Russian was traditionally supported by residents of the south and east . But even in these regions, only a third of the respondents were in favour, and after Russia's full-scale invasion , their number dropped by almost half. According to
20124-461: The other three languages in the East Slavic branch. In many places in eastern and southern Ukraine and throughout Belarus, these languages are spoken interchangeably, and in certain areas traditional bilingualism resulted in language mixtures such as Surzhyk in eastern Ukraine and Trasianka in Belarus. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect , although it vanished during the 15th or 16th century,
20296-417: The overall campaign, for which Brusilov's part was only supposed to be a distraction, because of Evert's failures, became tremendously costly for the imperial army, and after the offensive, it was no longer able to launch another on the same scale. Many historians contend that the casualties that the Russian army suffered in this campaign contributed significantly to its collapse the following year. The operation
20468-446: The parliament approved a bill to close up all Russian language schools and kindergartens by the school year. The transition to only Estonian language schools and kindergartens will start in the 2024-2025 school year. In Latvia , Russian is officially considered a foreign language. 55% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 26% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. On 18 February 2012, Latvia held
20640-511: The parliamentary deputies' demands for a closed session. On 27 November the council of ministers met to debate rescinding the decree of 2 December 1915, which had placed Sarrail under Joffre; Briand proposed that Joffre be effectively demoted to commander-in-chief in North-East France, reporting to the war minister along with the commander-in-chief at Salonika, although he withdrew this proposal after Joffre threatened resignation. During
20812-453: The peasants' speech was never systematically studied, as it was generally regarded by philologists as simply a source of folklore and an object of curiosity. This was acknowledged by the noted Russian dialectologist Nikolai Karinsky , who toward the end of his life wrote: "Scholars of Russian dialects mostly studied phonetics and morphology. Some scholars and collectors compiled local dictionaries. We have almost no studies of lexical material or
20984-459: The population aged 15 and above, could read and write well in Russian, and understand the spoken language. In October 2023, Kazakhstan drafted a media law aimed at increasing the use of the Kazakh language over Russian, the law stipulates that the share of the state language on television and radio should increase from 50% to 70%, at a rate of 5% per year, starting in 2025. In Kyrgyzstan , Russian
21156-418: The population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 67% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. According to the 2019 Belarusian census , out of 9,413,446 inhabitants of the country, 5,094,928 (54.1% of the total population) named Belarusian as their native language, with 61.2% of ethnic Belarusians and 54.5% of ethnic Poles declaring Belarusian as their native language. In everyday life in
21328-483: The position) forbade him even to approve units' being granted the fourragère —and on 26 December, the day he was promoted Marshal of France, he asked to be relieved. Joffre was still popular and was the first man to be promoted Marshal under the Third Republic . On 1 April 1917 Prime Minister Ribot asked Joffre to go on Viviani 's mission to the United States. There was already a similar British mission being prepared, led by Arthur Balfour , Foreign Secretary and
21500-455: The previous day that Kluck's German First Army was marching south-east across Paris, had the first of a series of telephone calls, conducted through aides, as Joffre would not come to the phone, and Gallieni refused to speak to anyone else. Gallieni proposed, depending on how much further the Germans were to be allowed to advance, to attack north of the Marne on 6 September or south of the Marne on 7 September. Joffre's reply saying he preferred
21672-479: The pronunciation of ultra-short or reduced /ŭ/ , /ĭ/ . Because of many technical restrictions in computing and also because of the unavailability of Cyrillic keyboards abroad, Russian is often transliterated using the Latin alphabet. For example, мороз ('frost') is transliterated moroz , and мышь ('mouse'), mysh or myš' . Once commonly used by the majority of those living outside Russia, transliteration
21844-472: The proper pronunciation of uncommon words or names. Russian is an East Slavic language of the wider Indo-European family . It is a descendant of Old East Slavic , a language used in Kievan Rus' , which was a loose conglomerate of East Slavic tribes from the late 9th to the mid-13th centuries. From the point of view of spoken language , its closest relatives are Ukrainian , Belarusian , and Rusyn ,
22016-491: The respondents), while according to the 2002 census – 142.6 million people (99.2% of the respondents). In Ukraine , Russian is a significant minority language. According to estimates from Demoskop Weekly, in 2004 there were 14,400,000 native speakers of Russian in the country, and 29 million active speakers. 65% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 38% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. On 5 September 2017, Ukraine's Parliament passed
22188-479: The same day, none of them were able to maintain their efforts for long..." Lechitsky's 9th Army and Shcherbachev's 7th Army made simultaneous attacks further south, with Lechitsky able to advance the front line to outside Stanislau , capturing it on 11 August. On 7 August, Brusilov resumed his offensive to take Kovel. By 8 August, the Germans and Austro-Hungarians had stopped the Russians, and on 9 August, Brusilov halted any further attempt to take Kovel. The offensive
22360-503: The second Chantilly Conference (15–16 November 1916) they agreed to concentrate on the Western Front in 1917 rather than sending greater resources to Salonika. The fall of Bucharest (6 December 1916) not only ruled out a Russo-Romanian attack on Bulgaria, but also made possible a Central Powers attack on Salonika. One of Joffre's last official duties (11 December) was to order Maurice Sarrail to cease his offensive and establish
22532-587: The southern option (which would take a day longer as it forced the Sixth Army to cross to south of the Marne, but would keep the Sixth Army and BEF from being separated by the river) arrived too late to reach Gallieni, who had left for a meeting with the BEF chief of staff, Archibald Murray . That same afternoon, Henry Wilson , the BEF sub-chief of staff, was negotiating separate plans with Franchet d'Espèrey, on
22704-456: The start of World War I until the end of 1916. He is best known for regrouping the retreating allied armies to defeat the Germans at the strategically decisive First Battle of the Marne in September 1914. His political position waned after unsuccessful offensives in 1915, the German attack on Verdun in 1916 , and the disappointing results of the Anglo-French offensive on the Somme in 1916 . At
22876-500: The state of trenches at Verdun and elsewhere on the front; in fact, matters were already being taken in hand at Verdun. The British government accepted the need to maintain the Salonika bridgehead to keep the French happy, despite being sceptical about the idea that it would bring Greece into the war on the Allied side, but British military opinion did not favour any more commitment than necessary. Argument continued with Joffre throughout
23048-535: The support of the German Army for its military successes. On the other hand, the German Army did not suffer much from the operation and retained most of its offensive power afterward. The early success of the offensive convinced Romania to enter the war on the side of the Entente , which led to the failure of the 1916 campaign . The Brusilov Offensive was the high point of the Russian effort during World War I, and
23220-626: The survey carried out by RATING in August 2023 in the territory controlled by Ukraine and among the refugees, almost 60% of the polled usually speak Ukrainian at home, about 30% – Ukrainian and Russian, only 9% – Russian. Since March 2022, the use of Russian in everyday life has been noticeably decreasing. For 82% of respondents, Ukrainian is their mother tongue, and for 16%, Russian is their mother tongue. IDPs and refugees living abroad are more likely to use both languages for communication or speak Russian. Nevertheless, more than 70% of IDPs and refugees consider Ukrainian to be their native language. In
23392-459: The syntax of Russian dialects." After 1917, Marxist linguists had no interest in the multiplicity of peasant dialects and regarded their language as a relic of the rapidly disappearing past that was not worthy of scholarly attention. Nakhimovsky quotes the Soviet academicians A.M Ivanov and L.P Yakubinsky, writing in 1930: The language of peasants has a motley diversity inherited from feudalism. On its way to becoming proletariat peasantry brings to
23564-517: The three corps for Paris if Maunoury's attack near Amiens failed. On 30 August Joffre recommended that the French government evacuate Paris and learned of the Russian disaster at Tannenberg , although he was aware that two German corps were still headed east as reinforcements for East Prussia. On 1 September the Fifth Army retreated across the Aisne in some confusion, and Joffre issued his Instruction Generale No 4 , placing Maunoury's Sixth Army under
23736-786: The two. Others divide the language into three groupings, Northern , Central (or Middle), and Southern , with Moscow lying in the Central region. The Northern Russian dialects and those spoken along the Volga River typically pronounce unstressed /o/ clearly, a phenomenon called okanye ( оканье ). Besides the absence of vowel reduction, some dialects have high or diphthongal /e⁓i̯ɛ/ in place of Proto-Slavic * ě and /o⁓u̯ɔ/ in stressed closed syllables (as in Ukrainian) instead of Standard Russian /e/ and /o/ , respectively. Another Northern dialectal morphological feature
23908-511: The use of the language has some presence in certain areas. A large part of the population, especially the older generations, can speak Russian as a foreign language. However, English has replaced Russian as lingua franca in Lithuania and around 80% of young people speak English as their first foreign language. In contrast to the other two Baltic states, Lithuania has a relatively small Russian-speaking minority (5.0% as of 2008). According to
24080-553: The war , Viviani asked Joffre, who had told him that nine out of ten generals would make poor ministers of war, whether Gallieni would be a good replacement for Millerand. Joffre replied, "Perhaps," then, after a pause for thought, "Maybe." In the event, Briand formed a new government on 29 October 1915, with Viviani as vice-president of the council of ministers (deputy prime minister) and Gallieni as war minister. As far back at 29 July 1915 Joffre had demanded that he be appointed commander-in-chief over all French forces, including those at
24252-482: The war minister, ordered Joffre to provide three active corps to defend Paris on 25 August, but Joffre, regarding this as interference with strategy, ignored him. On 26 August René Viviani formed a new government (the Union sacrée ), and on 27 August the new war minister, Alexandre Millerand , who had replaced Messimy largely because of the poor state of the Paris defences, visited Joffre. The general promised to provide
24424-714: The war ministry, and Gallieni's maintaining contacts with generals whom Joffre had replaced. In autumn 1915 Colonel Émile Driant , commander of a chasseurs brigade and a member of the Army Commission of the Chamber of Deputies , complained to Gallieni of how Joffre had been removing guns and garrisons from Verdun and even preparing some forts for demolition. Joffre was furious and disputed Gallieni's right to comment. The council of ministers discussed his reports, and Poincaré asked Gallieni to investigate. Gallieni wrote to Joffre (16 or 18 December 1915), expressing concern at
24596-593: The war, the effects of the Brusilov offensive were far-reaching. It relieved German pressure on French forces at Verdun , and helped to relieve the Austro-Hungarian pressure on the Italians . It inflicted irreparable losses on the Austro-Hungarian Army , and induced Romania to finally enter the war on the side of the Entente. The human and material losses on the Russian side also greatly contributed to
24768-586: The war. The offensive involved a major Russian attack against the armies of the Central Powers on the Eastern Front . Launched on 4 June 1916, it lasted until late September. It took place in eastern Galicia (present-day northwestern Ukraine ), in the Lviv and Volyn Oblasts . The offensive is named after the commander in charge of the Southwestern Front of the Imperial Russian Army, General Aleksei Brusilov . The largest and most lethal offensive of
24940-428: The west. On 28 July, Hindenburg was placed in command of the front up to the Austro-Hungarian 2nd Army, with Archduke Karl in command from that point south. On 24 July, artillery preparations began for the Russian assault in the Battle of Kovel . According to Buttar, "The fighting that extended from 28 July into early August was curiously disjointed...Although Lesh, Bezobrazov and Kaledin all launched their attacks on
25112-657: The western Allies caused the Russians to hurry their preparations. Brusilov amassed four armies totaling 40 infantry divisions and 15 cavalry divisions. He faced 39 Austro-Hungarian infantry divisions and 10 cavalry divisions, formed in a row of three defensive lines, as well as German reinforcements that were later brought up. Deception efforts on the Russian side were intended to conceal the point of attack. They included false radio traffic, false orders sent by messengers who were intended to be captured, and equipment displays including dummy artillery. Brusilov, knowing he would not receive significant reinforcements, moved his reserves up to
25284-542: The year. Late in March 1916 Joffre and Briand blocked a proposal by Lord Kitchener and Sir William Robertson to gradually withdraw five British divisions from Salonika as the Serb troops arrived. After months of discussion, Haig and Joffre agreed on 14 February 1916 to an Anglo-French offensive on the Somme , although the British were not pleased at Joffre's suggestion that the British engage in "wearing out" attacks prior to
25456-544: Was Catalan). In 1922 he was welcomed in Broadway , New York with a ticker-tape parade , a few months after Ferdinand Foch , the Supreme Allied Commander during World War I. Joffre died at the age of 78 in Paris on 3 January 1931. His body was buried on his estate at Louveciennes . His memoirs, in two volumes, were published posthumously in 1932. Joffre was initiated into Freemasonry in 1875, at
25628-502: Was a graphic demonstration of Brusilov's theories. Pressure across a broad front forced the defenders to commit their reserves and left no sectors that could release troops to aid others." By 11 June, Pflanzer-Baltin's Gruppe Benigni and XII Corps were forming new defensive lines to the west, as his XI Corps retreated south across the Prut . According to Buttar, adding those killed, wounded, or taken prisoner, "...the Austro-Hungarian 7th Army
25800-682: Was a manifestation of good leadership and planning on the part of the Imperial Russian Army coupled with great skill of the lower ranks. According to John Keegan , "the Brusilov Offensive was, on the scale by which success was measured in the foot-by-foot fighting of the First World War, the greatest victory seen on any front since the trench lines had been dug on the Aisne two years before ". The Brusilov offensive commanded by Brusilov himself went very well, but
25972-557: Was a shadow of its former self." On 11 June, Felix Graf von Bothmer 's South Army prepared a counterattack using Arthur Arz von Straußenburg 's VI Corps. However, Scherbachev was ready and the front line remained unchanged. On 11 June, while pursuing the Austro-Hungarian Army in Bukovina , Russian forces inadvertently crossed into Romanian territory , where they overwhelmed the border guard at Mamornița and had
26144-722: Was able to capture Kolomea. On 19 June, Russian cavalry, led by Mikhail Promtov crossed the Siret , and on 20 June reached the Carpathian Foothills . However, by the end of June, Southwest Front's casualties amounted to a costly 285,000. On 15 June, Linsingen ordered a counterattack, concentrating around the Lutsk salient formed by Kaledin's offensive. Attacking forces included Puhallo's 1st Army, Tersztyánsky's 4th Army, Georg von der Marwitz 's German X Corps, and Gruppe Bernhardi . However, after three days of fighting, little
26316-487: Was also unaware of the fall of Namur and of the extent of the fighting at Mons and Charleroi on his left), but at the time he demanded that the French Fourth Army resume the offensive and provide lists of unsatisfactory officers for dismissal. Messimy fully supported Joffre in his purge of unsuccessful generals, even suggesting that, as in 1793, some of them simply ought to be executed. On 25 August, rejecting
26488-470: Was arguably the most successful offensive in the entirety of the First World War. The victory contributed to a morale upsurge among the Russian troops, in 1917, Nicholas II planned a general offensive along the entire front in order to end the Central Powers . After the victory, the Petrograd conference [ ru ] was held at which the post-war structure of the world was discussed. Even despite
26660-494: Was assumed – it attacked the left flank of French Fourth Army. The French First and Second Armies attacked into Alsace-Lorraine on 19 and 20 August and were beaten back with severe loss by German forces, which were preparing for a counteroffensive. Joffre believed (20 August) that Liège was still holding out (in fact the last of the Liège forts had fallen on 16 August ), and hoped that Lanrezac would be able to reach Namur, which
26832-406: Was changed in the position of the front lines, even after the addition of Gruppe Falkenhayn on 21 June. Linsingen then decided to reinforce that attack group in a thrust towards Lutsk, but under the command of Marwitz, with the attack to commence on 30 June. Brusilov was preparing his own continued offensive, with Leonid Lesh 's 3rd Army advancing towards Pinsk , Kaledin's 8th Army towards Kovel,
27004-472: Was created from a portion of Pflanzer-Baltin's 7th Army that had retreated westward. Pflanzer-Baltin remained in command of the 7th Army that had retreated towards the Carpathians. Recognizing Southwest Front had the best chance to advance the Russian front lines, Ragoza's 4th Army was dispersed into Brusilov's 2nd and 10th Armies, and Brusilov was given Bezobrazov 's Guards Army. Southwest Front now had
27176-453: Was essentially over, according to Buttar, "Attacks continued on until the autumn rains turned the roads to mud, but other than add to the already terrible casualty list, nothing was achieved." Brusilov's operation achieved its original goal of forcing Germany to halt its attack on Verdun and transfer considerable forces to the East. Afterward, the Austro-Hungarian Army increasingly had to rely on
27348-709: Was expected to hold out for even longer. The Germans entered Brussels that day, but Joffre was convinced, after the defeat in Alsace-Lorraine and air and cavalry reports of strong German forces in Belgium, that the German centre in the Ardennes must be weak. On 21 August the French Second Army was pressed by a German counterattack. Édouard de Castelnau asked for permission to abandon Nancy and its fortified heights, but Joffre forbade him to do so. With
27520-405: Was first introduced in North America when Russian explorers voyaged into Alaska and claimed it for Russia during the 18th century. Although most Russian colonists left after the United States bought the land in 1867, a handful stayed and preserved the Russian language in this region to this day, although only a few elderly speakers of this unique dialect are left. In Nikolaevsk, Alaska , Russian
27692-421: Was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 19% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. According to the 2014 Moldovan census , Russians accounted for 4.1% of Moldova's population, 9.4% of the population declared Russian as their native language, and 14.5% said they usually spoke Russian. According to the 2010 census in Russia , Russian language skills were indicated by 138 million people (99.4% of
27864-702: Was informed by Alexeyev that Evert's West Front would not be able to commence their attacks before 18 June. Meanwhile, Linsingen ordered Friedrich von Bernhardi to gather German forces for a counterattack. On 8 June, in response to appeals for help from Conrad, Erich von Falkenhayn organized five German divisions under the command of Linsingen, concentrating them near Kovel for a counterattack. Brusilov moved to protect his northern flank, while all of his armies continued to maintain pressure all along his Southwest Front. On 9 and 10 June, Lechitsky's 9th Army advanced upon Doroschoutz, Okna and Czarny Potok, as Pflanzer-Baltin's 7th Army troops retreated. According to Buttar, "It
28036-506: Was marked by a considerable improvement in the quality of Russian tactics. Brusilov used smaller, specialized units to attack weak points in the Austro-Hungarian trench lines and blow open holes for the rest of the army to advance into. These were a remarkable departure from the human wave attacks that had dominated the strategy of all the major armies until that point during World War I. Evert used conventional tactics that were to prove costly and indecisive, thereby costing Russia its chance for
28208-424: Was promoted to Général de brigade while serving there. After returning to France in 1903 to command the 19th Cavalry Brigade, he then moved to the War Ministry in Paris as Director of Engineers in 1904. The next year he was promoted to Général de division, the highest rank in the French Army at the time. Subsequently, he commanded the 6th Infantry Division and served as Inspector of Military Schools. Joffre commanded
28380-493: Was put in command of the newly formed Sixth Army , which initially assembled near Amiens and then fell back toward Paris (26 August). Concerned at reports (which later turned out to be exaggerated) that the British had been defeated at Le Cateau and would need French protection to recover cohesion, early on 27 August Joffre gave Lanrezac a direct written order to counterattack as soon as his forces were on open ground, where they could use their artillery, which Lanrezac had told him
28552-460: Was replaced by Smekal as X Corps commander. After four days into the offensive, Buttar states, "Brusilov's revolutionary tactics had been stunningly successful: artillery had been used with a precision that was unprecedented; infantry had worked their way close to the defences before launching their attacks; and those attacks had not used the traditional lines of men that were so easy for machineguns and defensive artillery to destroy." However, Brusilov
28724-412: Was selected to command despite never having commanded an Army, even on paper, and "having no knowledge whatever of General Staff work." After a left-wing government came to power in 1914 , he was due to be replaced by Maurice Sarrail in the autumn, but war broke out before this could take place. At the outbreak of war, the French plan clashed with the German Schlieffen Plan , much to the detriment of
28896-405: Was sixteen, and twenty-eight if the German Fourth and Fifth Armies are also included), he believed that only a few of these would come west of the Meuse, where he believed they could be held by the British and Belgians. The French Third and Fourth Armies were preparing to attack into the Ardennes, and he wanted Lanrezac's Fifth Army to attack the bulk of the German right wing on its west flank as – it
29068-511: Was the key factor. After Lanrezac spent the day arguing against the order, Joffre visited him at 8.30 am on 28 August and ordered him to attack to the west. After a "heated" discussion, Joffre had Gamelin draw up a written order and signed it in Lanrezac's presence. Fernand de Langle de Cary 's Fourth Army, originally intended to be the spearhead of the attack into the Ardennes, was a strong force and had made several counterattacks, but Joffre now ordered it to cease counterattacking and to send
29240-402: Was the sixth-most used language on the top 1,000 sites, behind English, Chinese, French, German, and Japanese. Despite leveling after 1900, especially in matters of vocabulary and phonetics, a number of dialects still exist in Russia. Some linguists divide the dialects of Russian into two primary regional groupings, "Northern" and "Southern", with Moscow lying on the zone of transition between
29412-536: Was to be sent at the start of June. On the last day of his visit to Washington, Newton D. Baker , the secretary of war , introduced him to General John J. Pershing , just selected to command the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF). Joffre told him that "he can always count on me for anything in my power." On 13 June Pershing, who had landed at Boulogne that morning, met Joffre, Paul Painlevé (war minister), Viviani and Foch (chief of staff) in Paris. Joffre recommended that an American unit be rushed to France to show
29584-503: Was welcomed by Admiral Henry Mayo , commander-in-chief of the US Atlantic Fleet, Ambassador Jean Jules Jusserand and Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin Roosevelt . He arrived in Washington the following morning, where he met Secretary of State Robert Lansing and Arthur Balfour. Joffre stayed in Washington for ten days, and addressed both Houses of Congress individually. On 27 April he met Army Chief of Staff Hugh Scott and his deputy, Tasker Bliss . Joffre recommended sending
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